Tear down The Wall

At 67 years old a reflective Roger Waters took his new live production of The Wall to Saint Paul and it was a spectacular display that managed to transcend original intent while spanning eternal human struggles.

While surveying the preshow crowd I noticed an abundance of grandmas and grandpas filling the seats, yelling “WHOOOO”, and pointing at friends seated elsewhere. This was to be a show where everyone seemed to know someone and by the end we would all agree with solemn pledge to tear down the fucking wall.

The show opened with an near full-scale Luftwaffe Stuka dive-bomber crashing into the partially constructed wall and exloding into a ball of flames. The evenings first physical manifestation of the psychological thriller we all came to see. Since Roger Waters’ last tour of The Wall the technology has drastically improved and as the show progressed the bricks of the wall were filled in one by one. Although the wall would eventually become a completed projection screen it started out with simple bricks and a message, as much a statement on life as a metaphor, a message against war and all it entails. A message that would be reitterated time and time again throughout the evening as Roger Waters combined potent imagery and modern themes of loss with the timeless inner struggles of mankind. A binary battle of good vs evil, wrong vs right, and us vs them.

While Roger Waters may have come to grips with his inner demons his sense of justice has remained unwavering as his powerful voice. Yes, those preshow grandmas were correct. WOOOOOOO!

At times throughout the evening Waters transformed from an inexplicably fit and energetic man to a seemingly frail grandfather dwarfed by the the wall behind him and back. All while purveying his message of antiwar, anti-establishment, and anti-suffering.

Perhaps here in America we don’t respect our elders enough. Perhaps Mr.Roger is correct that we don’t value life as we should and at one point during the show he notes that every gun built is a thief. It steals food from the unfed. It steals life from the living.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0ZlOG5TO-A[/youtube]

It may not take an epic struggle with our own morality and mortality to tear down the wall, but it certainly seems to help.